21.2% GaAs Solar Cell Using Bilayer Electron Selective Contact

GaAs remains one of the crucial materials for solar cell applications as it boasts the world's highest efficiency single-junction solar cells. However, their high cost limits their widespread terrestrial applications. Traditional GaAs solar cells require a complex stack of doped junctions, which can only be grown using epitaxy, which is a very costly technique. Herein, a nonepitaxial bilayer of ZnO and TiO2 as electron-selective contact is studied. It is shown that a bilayer selective contact can achieve very high performance through interface band engineering and a reduction of the barrier for electron transfer. 21.2% efficient solar cells is achieved, with Voc of 1.04 V, Jsc of 26.13 mA cm-2, and a fill factor of 77.8%. The Voc reported in the article is comparable to the highest Voc reported for substrate-based GaAs solar cells of 1.075 V. An experimental loss analysis shows that the device is mainly limited by series and shunt resistance and reflection losses, both of which can further be minimized by optimization of the fabrication process. The results presented will be very useful for the further development of cheaper GaAs solar cells, whereas the bilayer selective contact concept can be implemented for other kinds of solar cells. This article reports the fabrication of GaAs solar cells using an unconventional technology based on carrier selective contact. Moreover, instead of one single layer of selective contact, two different layers were used to modify the charge transport and collection in the solar cell, leading to an overall boost in the solar cell efficiency.image (c) 2024 WILEY-VCH GmbH